Journals and Logs: What are they?

Since the beginning of the Shared Reading Project in Hawai'i and at the Kendall Demonstration Elementary School for the Deaf at Gallaudet, tutors and families have been asked to keep written logs of their experiences, questions, and thoughts about Shared Reading.

Tutors wrote about their experiences in helping their assigned families learn to share books with their young deaf children. The project coordinator read the tutors' logs, provided them with feedback and coached them on how to work more effectively with their families.

Families wrote about their experiences as recipients of the training and as the readers of books to their children. They were encouraged to record any questions they wanted to ask the tutor during the next visit. These logs helped the tutor understand the concerns and needs of their particular families and to deliver the help their families needed.

The logs give a glimpse into the interaction processes that are such an important part of Shared Reading. The parents and tutors have given permission for excerpts of these logs to be used here for training and illustration purposes. The names of each of the families, family members, and tutors have been changed to protect the privacy of these Shared Reading families.

For evaluation of the Shared Reading Project beginning in 1997-1998, the "Family Reading Record" form replaced the open-ended family of previous years. The Reading Record was developed to provide families with a calendar to record when they read to their deaf child between tutor visits and with a more structured format for recording their questions and experiences.